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The Organ Grinder and his Monkey
Saturday, 23rd April 2011 08:25 AM
Why is it that the designer has more esteem than the maker? I have been mulling over this question as a result of our contact with a customer recently. David did the design work for a small project for them, I did the making. The customer phoned a few times to discuss details, but he did not want to talk to me, the maker, but David the designer. At that point I probably knew more about the job than David.
I think this shows the difference in attitude towards designers and makers. I believe that currently designers have more kudos than makers. I am probably just as prone to this as the next person, otherwise why don’t I just concentrate on making and not worry about design?
I think there are three main reasons for the designer/maker distinction.
- Designers decide on how things will look, style and appearance are dominant in our world, durability and fitness to purpose, which the maker has control over, are secondary.
- Design is an intellectual activity while making is a physical activity. Makers get their calloused hands dirty, designers don’t. This is an important social distinction separating the elite from the “horny handed son’s of toil”.
- Design is considered a “creative” activity, making is “manufacture”. Being creative is something most people aspire to, manufacture is equated with factories.
At Designer Makers we know that design and making are equally important. Take the Wave kitchen for instance. We, as designers came up with the concept of the wave running round the units, the oak, walnut, maple combination. But we know that it was decisions made by the maker that gave the kitchen it’s special quality, the careful grain matching, the slight arrising of a corner to enhance the feel of a door as you open it, the robust jointing of the cabinets to ensure durability. These important decisions and their like are all made by the maker.
So I would say that the designer and the maker are equals, the quality of a chair, table, wardrobe etc is defined by a combination of their skills. I suppose that is why we call ourselves Designer Makers Furniture.
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The wave kitchen was designed jointly by David, the customer and myself
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But many of the deisions made during making define the quality of the piece, such as this grain matching.
Comments…Add yours
Posted by bob Armstrong on 23/06/11
A client of mine once told me quite openly that "at school the thickies do woodwork and the clever kids do Latin".
As a cabinetmaker I'm still trying to work out if he insulted me.
Posted by chris on 24/06/11
Many of the people who come on my courses went to grammar school and took the latin option, now in middle age they are feeling the need for hand and brain stimulation rather than the purely intellectual activity of most office jobs. So perhaps the "thickies" in fact made the clever choice.
After all, what is more useful, putting up a shelf or parsing a verb!